Professionally Speaking – Caliber Law, S.C.

Residential landlords, realtors, and title companies in Wisconsin are all happy parties, as the State of Wisconsin is revoking its outdated rental weatherization program effective January 1, 2018.

The program was a good idea back in the 1970’s when it was originally put into place, as it set forth specific rules requiring anyone purchasing a property – for the purpose of renting it out to residential tenants – to go through special weatherization inspections and follow complicated processes before being allowed to close on and purchase the property.

Worse yet, the rules required buyers and title companies to comply with requirements of obtaining special stipulations before closing, and post-closing obligations such as compliance inspections and filing certificates with the State over a year after they closed on the property, which many purchasers were forgetting to do simply on an administrative level.

The only problem with the repeal of Wis. Stat. § 101.122 is that the Wisconsin legislature forgot to provide what happens to stipulations filed by property purchasers this year that have not been closed out and are still in effect, but it sounds like the legislature is likely to provide clarification in the near future that any such outstanding stipulations do not need to be complied with. We will wait and see what the legislature does with this item.

The revocation of this outdated program now helps simplify the system if you are contemplating buying a property for residential tenant purposes, and removes the confusing, conflicting and often non-followed rules under the outdated Rental Weatherization Program.

Atty. John W. Schuster, J.D., MBA is the owner of Caliber Law, S.C. in Oshkosh, who specializes in business law and real estate.